


Childish Things

by TheLionInMyBed



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Coming of Age, Gen, Skinny Dipping, questionable parenting, this isn't very shippy but I won't be offended if you read it that way anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 17:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11856132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: Coming of age is a messy business at the best of times and in Valinor, with strife growing between the sons of Finwë and darkness soon to fall, these aren't the best of times.Maedhros does his best to be a good son, a good prince, a good brother, a good friend.His best is nowhere near enough.





	Childish Things

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Детские шалости](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12069216) by [rio_abajo_rio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rio_abajo_rio/pseuds/rio_abajo_rio)



> I wrote this a billion years ago, intended to develop the idea beyond these vignettes, and then decided it was too self-indulgent/forgot about it. WHUPS, POSTING ANYWAY.

It started with Maglor’s birth and the news that he was to be a big brother.

“We shall not love you any less,” said his mother and Maedhros, delighted at the thought of a new playmate, would not understand until he was much older why she thought he needed to hear that.

“You are no longer the youngest of our House,” said his father, who really should have understood. “In you rests all the hopes and aspirations of our line. You must put aside childish things and become the man-”

“Fëanor, darling, I think he needs to be changed,” said Nerdanel the Wise, pressing the snuffling baby into his father’s arms and ushering Maedhros outside.

Even then Maedhros had been dutiful and inclined to take his father far too seriously. He gathered up his toys, including the wooden horse with articulated joints, and carried them to the baby’s room, resolved never to cry again (even after he fell out of the plum tree in the yard and broke his arm so badly that the bone poked through the skin), and stopped demanded sweets after dinner.

Books were more interesting than toys anyway, now that he could read, so that was no great sacrifice, and he’d never been particularly inclined to tears.

Dessert was harder. “Even your grandfather has sweets on occasion,” said his mother when he insisted that he didn’t want any lemon cakes. But then his father said proudly that his son was already more mature than his spoilt, profligate half brother, and that resolved that (although Maedhros did have to look up ‘profligate’ in his father’s dictionary afterwards).

He was third in line to the throne - it was his _name_ \- and though he was not yet entirely clear on what a prince was supposed to do, he was determined to be the best one he could be. By the time he was old enough to understand that masochism had very little to do with maturity, it had become habit.

***

“You may have my syllabub,” he told his cousin Fingon with what he thought, at the time, was kind forbearance. Looking back he’d been an insufferably patronizing child and it was a wonder anyone had put up with him. “I prefer coffee.” Adults drank it though he really didn’t see why.

Fingon, mercifully too young to be anything but overawed, nodded and set to work demolishing it as he had demolished his own dessert. It wasn’t a very regal display, Maedhros thought, sipping his coffee and hoping the cup concealed his grimace at the bitterness. His father was sat higher up the banquet table, at the King’s right hand, and probably the sight of Fingon with cream on his nose would please him and annoy his- his half uncle.

He frowned at himself. That wasn’t a very princely thought to have. “Come here,” he said and, not looking regretfully at the remains of his dessert, took up his napkin and helped his cousin clear the worst of the stickiness from off his face.

***

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it?” Maedhros said. It was the first time they’d seen each other since the Naming and he’d desperately hoped Fingon would have the tact not to mention it, never mind accost him in a public square right outside the palace. He really ought to have known better.

“Well I know I’d be a little put out if Father had me and Turgon and then decided, ‘ _This_ son is my real heir.’”

“It’s just a name, Fingon. It’s not as though he’s disowned me. Grandfather says he looks a lot like Father did at that age, that’s all.” _Children_ got hurt feelings over nothing. Maedhros was come of age, or very nearly, and knew better.

“Your mother looked furious.”

“She often does.”

“Alright. Do you want to go down to the butts?”

He didn’t, but it would make Fingon happy. “Let’s. You have a new bow, don’t you?”

Fingon did indeed have a new bow and was more than happy to hold forth about it at length, his ridiculous concerns forgotten. They were not so far apart in age though no one would know if for how rash and frivolous his cousin could be. Wastrel son of a lesser House, Fëanor would - did - say, but sometimes Maedhros envied him his unconcern. No one expected anything from Fingon.

The archery range was empty but for them which was a relief to Maedhros and a disappointment to Fingon who did love to show off. Maedhros was a fair shot - he was fair at many things - and acquitted himself well enough, then did his best to provide an appreciative audience for Fingon, who was excellent.

While he watched he made mental lists of the areas of his schooling in which he might do better. It was all of them, really; his father was brilliant, his brothers were or would be. He would have to work harder. Spend longer in the forge. Stop wasting so much time in politically unsuitable company. He glanced guiltily at Fingon who finished wrapping his bow and said, oblivious, “do you want to go through the market on the way back? We could stop for ices.”

“I have too much to do and you know I don’t care for them.”

“I’m mad at my father too,” Fingon said abruptly, shouldering his quiver. He was flighty and prone to such abrupt topic shifts.

Maedhros wasn’t angry at his own father but it was easier to follow the change of subject than argue the point. “Still no horse?”

“I’m tall enough and old enough - _you_ have one.”

“I’ve never been fined for midnight racing through the streets.” If nothing else, Maedhros had never done anything to shame his family.

“You say that like it’s something to be proud of,” Fingon said, eyes gleaming. “Anyway, if I had a horse and not that useless lumpen pony I would never have been caught.”

“Poor thing, the world conspires against you. Alright, we’ll get ices if it will console you.” He was too old to waste his time like this, had too many responsibilities, but he could be magnanimous one last time.

“It might help,” Fingon agreed solemnly, still very much a child.

***

He and Maglor had only been away in Alqualondë a fortnight and, while a certain level of chaos was to be expected in a family as large and distractible as theirs, they had not thought to return to empty cupboards and their youngest brothers unkempt, unfed and, in Amras’ case, undressed.

“Where are Mother and Father?” Maedhros asked, once he’d wrestled Amras into a tunic and calmed Curufin enough for answers.

“Father’s in the forge. Mother’s not here.”

“Was there another fight?”

The lack of an answer was answer enough in itself.

“Where are our brothers?”

“I don’t know. Hunting. With friends.”

“Your nurse?”

“Gone.”

“Dismissed?” Maedhros guessed from the flat finality. “Why?”

Curufin curled his lip, a distinctly unchildlike expression out of place on his young face. “Spying. For our half-uncle.”

That did not seem very likely - Maluben, cheerful, incurious and utterly apolitical, had served them since Caranthir’s birth - but there was little point in arguing with his father, less still with Curufin. “I begin to see why our parents fought. Come,” he said, picking up a twin in each arm and letting Curufin catch hold of his tunic. “Let’s get you fed.”

The kitchen looked worse than Father’s workshop had during his brief interest in fungal propagation - clearly it was not just the twins’ nurse who had been dismissed - and Maedhros put aside all thoughts of finishing the report on salmon fisheries his Grandfather had asked for.

“ _Ugh_.” Maglor’s disembodied voice drifted from the pantry like the wail of a petulant ghost. “The flour’s all weevily.”

Maedhros shook back his hair in a futile attempt to keep Amrod’s snot off it and then bounced him upon his hip when he threatened to start bawling again. “It’ll be fine once it’s cooked.”

“That’s what you said last time, after the potatoes went slimey,” Curufin said darkly.

“Hush,” Maedhros said and gave him a piece of liquorice - he kept a bag upon the highest shelf in his bedroom in case of such need. “Bring it out, Maglor.”

Cooking wasn’t a skill much sought after in a prince but their father had grown to disdain bringing servants upon their expeditions - in many ways the events of today were not so surprising - and so Maedhros had learnt to make do after a fashion. If the lumpy flatbread he produced was burnt in places, at least that hid the weevils, and the children were far too hungry to complain.

There was nothing to have them with save a jar of pickled herring so elderly that Maedhros did not even dare to open it, and their mother’s favourite peach preserves. Usually none of them touched them out of respect but these were desperate times and Maedhros was not feeling particularly respectful.

“You put them to bed and I’ll wash up,” he told Maglor once the children had eaten and were nodding over their plates. “And take something out to Father, I suppose.”

“Better you than me.” Maglor blinked at him across the kitchen table and then looked away. “The pans, I mean! That’s a rich and varied culture you’re going to be destroying.”

“However shall I live with myself? In the morning would you go to the market? I’ll see about hiring back the servants.”

“I’ve a composition due two days from now,” Maglor groused but his hands were already raised in surrender. They both knew family came first.

Princes did the dishes no more than they cooked and, after rinsing out the pans he’d used himself and picked at the worst of the mould, Maedhros gave up and left the mess to soak. All too soon he was picking his way across the silver-lit courtyard with a covered plate, towards the forge glow of his father’s workshop.

He had been hoping there would be no answer to his knock - that was normal when his father was caught up in work - but the door swung open before he could even think of setting the platter down and stealing away.

“Ah, Maedhros,” said his father, ushering him inside. His clothes were crumpled, plainly slept in, and wisps of hair had escaped his braids to cling to the sweat upon his neck and brow, but his eyes were bright and burning. “Come in and look at this! I have here a sample of bronze. Now there’s nothing revolutionary in alloying copper and tin - even your half-uncle could do that much! - but for this batch I added phosphorous during the melting process and can you guess what happened?”

“Phosphorous?” Maedhros set the plate down upon a stretch of workbench that seemed relatively free of blueprints and dangerous chemicals. “Would it deoxid-”

“Deoxidisation is exactly right!” his father said, beaming. “It significantly reduced the viscosity of the molten metal.”

Maedhros bit his lip against the warm flush of pride his father’s praise always evoked. “Where _is_ the phosphorus? I wouldn’t ask but the children were unsupervis-”

“Oh I locked it away, don’t worry. Thanks to the reduced grain boundaries this alloy casts very cleanly and, while I’m still testing its properties, it seems exceptionally resistant to wear and chemical corrosion.”

 _Father, this can’t go on_ , he meant to say. _You’re frightening me._ But what came out was, “Curufin tells me you’ve had problems with the staff.”

“Oh? Yes, so I did. Not to worry, I took care of it.” For a moment his father looked unsure. “Where _is_ Curufin?”

“Maglor’s putting him and the twins to bed. With your approval - and if you’ll advance me the funds - I’ll find replacements.”

“That’s not your job.”

“No, Father.” His tone was colder than he had intended. “But it must be done.”

Fëanor pinned him with his gaze, eyes bright with appraisal, and Maedhros was first to look away, feeling an uncomfortable kinship with the copper alloy upon the bench.

“I’ll see to it myself,” his father said at last. “The metal isn’t going anywhere. Now I must go and check my youngest sons are tucked into bed and then you and Maglor can tell me of your time in Valmar.”

 _That is too little and too late_ , Maedhros did not say. “I look forwards to it,” he replied instead and thought he kept the irritation from his voice quite well. Certainly his father smiled, ruffled his hair and left the forge without seeming to have noticed.

Maedhros banked the fires as his father had once taught him and saw that all the tools were put away, out of reach of small hands. He picked up the untouched plate, walked out into the courtyard and hurled it hard against the wall. It was unspeakably childish but the tinkling crash of crockery was too satisfying for him to care.

***

Beneath his hands the bones locked and ground. He’d seen the diagrams extrapolated from animal dissections or made by healers that remembered the Journey. He knew how the correct angle and a very small amount of force would destroy the joint.

Instead he released the man with a shove that sent him staggering. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. All of you,” Maedhros said. His father’s words could enthral a crowd and bind them to his purpose with the force of his terrible eloquence but it was his mother he drew on now, calm and practical.

One of the lordlings actually hung his head and two looked suitably chastened. The fourth rubbed his elbow and glowered. “Crown Prince Fëanor said-“

“I know perfectly well what my father said and it was not that you should fall to brawling in the streets like orcs.” Technically true; Fëanor had put it much more elegantly. Still, Maedhros was taller, a prince himself, and still desperate for an excuse to hurt them. His father’s man was the first to look away.

“Are you well?” he asked their erstwhile victim, pretending to watch the men’s’ retreating backs to ensure they didn’t turn about. Time enough for Fingon to dust himself off and slow the desperate pant of his breathing.

“Do I get a lecture?” Fingon said at last, bright and slightly brittle.

“Only if you want one.”

“‘What were you doing out alone, Fingon? Aren’t you too old to be picking fights? Don’t you know it’s beneath your honour as a prince? I know you have no head for politics but surely even you know better than to antagonize my father’s followers. He is a great man and he says-’”

“Uncanny. You’re a better me than I am.”

“That’s not hard,” Fingon snapped, hands fisted at his sides. “I could have taken them.”

“Why do you think I intervened? It would have been horribly embarrassing for us if you’d laid out the four of them.”

“‘Us.’” Fingon finished straightening his clothes and raised a hand to his eye which was already swelling. The skin across his cheekbone had split and the cut was seeping stickily down the side of his face.

“You’re bleeding.” Maedhros reached out. “Let me-”

“It’s fine.” Fingon turned and started off, thankfully in the opposite direction to the one that Fëanor’s followers had gone in. The streets were deserted though it was only early evening, doors barred and curtains drawn. It was horrible to see the city like this, worse still to know that he had had a hand in it. It was no place to walk alone, especially with a head wound and Maedhros set off after him. “I don’t need you to see me home,” Fingon said, not slowing, when he realised he was being followed.

“We’re going the same way,” Maedhros lied easily. “If you’re going to be me then I must be you; I’m going to swim naked in Grandfather’s carp pond.”

Fingon was almost startled into laughter. Almost. “You wouldn’t.”

“I might.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t precisely awkward but it certainly wasn’t companionable. Maedhros watched the shadows, twitched his ears at the scuffles of movement swiftly stifled behind closed doors, and wished he had his sword.

Fingon cleared his throat. “I didn’t need you to intercede, you understand-”

“Of course.”

“-But I appreciate that you did. What will your father say?” He asked it mildly enough but his eyes were dark and not entirely kind.

“I don’t care. Don’t look at me like that! I don’t. Whatever his quarrel with your father, _this_ -” He gestured to Fingon’s cheek. “-Is no way to deal with it.”

Fingon spread his hands to display his bloody knuckles. “The fighting is the part of this that I mind least.”

“What would you have me do?” _Stop listening to your father. Stop undermining him. Stop trying to play both sides._

_Grow up._

“Going through with your threat would be a good place to start.” Fingon hadn’t spoken to him like that - like they were friends - in near a year and Maedhros’ heart lifted and then sank. He really should have promised to do something less stupid.

“I said I would, didn’t I? A man must keep his word.”

He did. The pool wasn’t especially cold but he made a show of shivering for Fingon’s benefit and yelped in horror when a curious fish brushed up against his calf. Fingon, being Fingon, needed no encouragement at all to strip off and join him, and somewhere between the splashing, near drownings and rescuing fish flung from the pool in their - Fingon’s - enthusiasm, things felt almost like they once had. They scandalized a maid, two of Finwë’s guards and then the same maid again with two friends in tow before Maedhros decided enough of his dignity had been sacrificed upon the altar of their friendship.

“Things can’t go on like this,” Fingon said afterwards, over tea in the palace’s cavernous kitchen. He looked better despite the pondweed tangled in his braids; the cool water had brought the swelling down and he’d finally let Maedhros clean and disinfect the cut.

“It’s going to come to a head soon.” Maedhros sipped his tea and sighed. Fingon always made it far too sweet.

“We could leave. Stay in some cabin in the woods until it all blows over. Go hunting. Swim every day. Never even think about the crown which, by the way, is an entirely academic matter in the first place.”

“Do you want me to say it? Or do you want to do your impression?”

“‘No, Fingon. We have responsibilities.’”

***

He’d never seen a corpse before.

His grandmother’s body lay in the Gardens of Lórien but that was not the same. She still breathed and her heart still beat though she was as empty as a shell left by a hermit crab upon the shore.

His grandfather - they only knew it for him by his rings - was nothing like that. Was, in fact, nothing like a body.

When they found it lying in the doorway, Maedhros first thought Celegorm had butchered some animal and left it for the servants, but his brother was a better butcher than that and had spent the day with them. Even after the darkness and the horror that had stolen away their strength and their wits, he had not truly believed that when they reached home that they would not find their grandfather waiting, ready to tut and tell them all was well.

He stepped over the threshold and something hard skittered beneath his heel. A tooth. He kept walking, numb fingers fumbling at his cloak. He managed to unpin it, pricking himself in the process, and then dropped it over the wreckage.

“Celegorm, take the twins,” he heard himself say, voice very cold. “Go back to the stables. Ride for Tirion.”

“No.” Amrod or Amras. Usually he could tell without looking.

“Take them.”

“Are the servants-”

“ _Are the silmarils_ -”

“Do you think me craven?” Celegorm had his knife out and his lips pulled back to show his teeth. “If the monster that did this is still here-”

 _Then we all die._ “Someone must tell the city and you’re the fastest rider. The rest of us will catch up.”

“I won’t run-”

“Yes _._ You will.”

They went.

Curufin and Caranthir he sent down to the vaults - they knew their contents best - while he and Maglor went from room to empty room, seeking survivors, seeking any sign of life. Someone ought to stay in the ruined foyer with the ruined body of the man who’d told them stories of the Journey when they were small, taught them to skip stones, tickled them until they shrieked, but he did not think a one of them could bear it.

They found no more death. They found nothing at all.

Although all was in place as it had been when they left that morning, the house felt different. It was not their childhood home now but an empty shell. Like their grandmother. Like the thing in the entrance hall. Their footsteps sounded loud upon the tiles and, though they had thought to call out for survivors they could not bear to raise their voices above a whisper. The beginnings of a meal were set out in the kitchen and Maedhros went to put away the knives and half-chopped vegetables before realising it didn’t matter.

“He took everything,” said Caranthir when they met again, outside. He did not even sound angry, only tired and very frightened.

Maglor had his harp out and was plucking aimlessly at the strings. Maedhros would have told him to stop but then Curufin said, “Have you thought of a rhyme for ‘dismember’ yet?” and he had to hold Caranthir back from striking him instead. Maglor dropped his harp anyway with a discordant jangle of notes.

“Pick it up,” Maedhros said. “There’s nothing else we can do here. We’ll ride after the others.”

“What about Grandfather?” Curufin still grinned, as though his joke had been very clever, but his eyes were fey and fearful.

“We can’t just leave him,” Carathir said, too softly.

Maglor had his harp cradled his chest again and, though his lips moved, he was silent.

“We have to.” When Maedhros thought of what gathering up the remains would entail he did not know whether to laugh or retch. Already the mess was seeping through his cloak; he had never been so glad they all wore red. “We must travel fast,” he lied and no one argued.

They wanted to be lead. For all the years they had spent arguing with him over chores undone and possessions borrowed and unreturned, now they wanted someone to obey, an excuse to stop thinking. He wished that he might do the same.

Once they reached Tirion, he would be able to. It was a selfish, cowardly thought but he clung to it all the same. Father would take charge and he could stop wondering if he could have been more persuasive when he asked Grandfather on their hunt, if he should have started back earlier, if there was something now he had not thought of he must do.

His horse shifted restlessly as he saddled her, mouthing at the bit, eyes white and rolling. He stroked her nose and whispered soothing nonsense until she quieted.

It would have suited his mood better to race for Tirion at a gallop but one of them must look to it that their mounts didn’t die beneath them and so he called for walks at need, ignoring his brothers' scowls and impatience. It was well that he did. It was the mingling of the lights and they had stopped to let their horses drink from a rill when the radiance upon Ezellohar flickered and died.

“What’s happening?” said Caranthir, invisible but for the pale gleam of his eyes.

“It’s the end of the world,” said Maglor and Maedhros would have chastened him but if there was a time for melodrama this was surely it.

“The stars burn yet,” Curufin said but he did not sound certain.

“We go on,” said Maedhros and, blind and stumbling, they did.

The sudden darkness did not sap their strength as it had done before but it was awful and smothering; Maedhros found himself panting, unable to draw a full breath. About them was a twittering of birds; owls and larks and nightingales all muddled up, and ahead something very large began to howl.

That, if nothing else, was reassuring and they lead their horses through the gloom towards Huan’s baying.

Celegorm was clutching his dog when they found him while the twins clung to each other. “He can see us safely to the city,” Celegorm said. “But he does not know what we will find.”

Their father was there, their mother, their aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. Maedhros tried not to think of the ruined, oozing thing that lay beneath his cloak in Formenos. “We go on,” he said again. What else could they do?

The road was long and hard, a thousand times more so than in the light. All sounds were magnified and even the scuffle of the smallest animal in the hedgerow had them jumping and clutching at each other.

“Sing for us,” he bade Maglor after a hedgehog had startled Caranthir so badly that he almost toppled into a ditch.

Maglor hesitated - that in itself was telling - but cleared his throat and launched into a bawdy drinking song about hedgehogs. It wasn’t all that funny and certainly wasn’t zoologically accurate but Maedhros picked up the tune and joined in on the chorus, and the others followed his lead

They’d run through the bestiary all the way to tardigrades by the time they reached the silent city and passed through it to Taniquetil.

Fëanor stood within the Ring of Doom, so pale and furious that Maedhros thought he already knew the evil that had been done. He spoke anyway - it was his duty - and told the gods of murder, theft and an all consuming Darkness. He did not mention the tooth beneath his boot, that they had not known their grandfather by his face because he no longer had one, that their home was no longer safe, that he did not think he would ever feel safe again.

He had known his father would not take it well. The curses he had expected - he was glad to hear his fear and grief and anger given voice - but not the flight that followed. With their leader gone his father’s followers looked to his brothers. His brothers looked to him.

Maedhros cleared his throat and hoped the darkness hid the uncertainty on his face. “Return to your homes,” he said.

“Wait,” said Curufin, sounding younger than he had in years. “Don’t dismiss them! We need them to find Father! We need search parties, we need to-”

Maedhros took his arm; Curufin would not want comfort from him but there was no one else to give it. “He’s not a runaway child and it will look ill if we treat him so. Can Huan track him?”

“Yes,” said Celegorm, and the hound huffed in agreement. “But-”

“Good. You and, yes, Curufin go after him. Fetch lamps from the house first - I don’t want you taking injury in the dark.”

“Yes, _Mother_ ,” Celegorm said and, catching his younger brother’s wrist, stalked off into the gloom.

“Caranthir, take the twins and go with them. Bring back whatever lampstones we have in storage.”

“And what of us?” said Maglor.

“Fingolfin is regent yet. We will do better if we cooperate with him and his people.” And _he_ would do better when no one was looking to him, full of hope and fear and expectations he could not meet.

Maglor smiled wanly. “Quickly then, before the others return.”

Before they found their uncle, they stumbled over Aredhel, Fingon, and some twenty soldiers all in what would have been blue but for the dark. They all had swords and eyes so wide the whites showed all about. One overzealous woman almost took off Maglor’s head before Aredhel leapt forwards and batted the blade aside.

“A star shines upon our meeting, cousins,” she said with brittle cheer. “Even if nothing else does. You’re overlate.”

“We were hoping to be fashionable,” said Maglor, just as strained. “Though we may have overdone it. Speaking of late, our grandfa-”

“ _Maglor_. We need to see your father. The House of Fëanor means to offer the king regent what help it can.”

“Does it now?” said Fingon, cool and princely. “Very well, come with us.” His face was pale in the lamp’s wan light but the gold in his hair blazed with a ghostly fire.

“Are you well?” Maedhros said, quietly so they would not be overheard. He placed a hand on Fingon’s shoulder and felt his cousin stiffen. “I’ve not had a clear account of what happened but they said a Darkness came-” Abruptly, Fingon turned and throw his arms about him.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said, muffled by Maedhros’ shoulder. “Though I had hoped.”

Aredhel and her soldiers had not stopped. They needed to catch up lest they lose them in the dark. Maedhros could not bring himself to let go of his cousin though. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he said and clung a little tighter, smoothing a hand over his hair. He could almost pretend it was for Fingon’s sake.

“ _I_ was fine,” Fingon said, pulling back enough to glare. “I saved you some cake. You weren’t coming but I did it anyway.”

After all that had happened this day - was it still day? - that should not have hurt so much. “Fingon,” Maedhros said gently. “The trees are dead. Our grandfather is dead. The silmarils are gone.”

Fingon shrugged him off and turned to follow his sister. “It doesn’t matter,” he said over his shoulder. “I think someone trod on it.”

***

Maglor cajoled and Caranthir screamed, Celegorm threw tantrums and Curufin wheedled. The twins got their way by virtue of their age, but Maedhros had always been the dutiful one who did what he was told because he had been told to do it. He wished now that he had been a less agreeable child.

“Father, wait, _Father_ , it is your right to burn them, of course it is your right but there are better ways. It will look ill!” he invented desperately. “It will look like you fear his influence.”

“And should I not?” his father said, too loud. He was orating for the crown even now. “When even my own son speaks in his favour?”

“I do not speak in favour of Fingolfin. We came here to fight a war, to avenge your father - yours and his! - and to win back the silmarils. Surely then it is not wise to leave the greater part of our host behind.”

“Do you think so little of our courage?” Fëanor paused to that the crowd could hiss their disapproval. “Without _valiant_ Fingon at your side have you turned craven? Have you forgotten whose son you are?”

“How could I? I’ve fought for you and killed for you. Father, you can’t doubt that I would die for you if it came to it, but this is spite and madness.” He should not have called it madness, he knew even as he said it from how the banked flame in his father’s eyes blazed hotter. He went on anyway; “You fear that he will steal your crown? I tell you now, the crown does not _matter_!” Maedhros cast aside his torch. It hissed and spluttered upon the sand but did not go out.

“Pick it up,” said his father. ‘Pick it up,’ he had said a hundred times, a hundred years ago when Maedhros gave up in frustration over steel that wouldn’t temper, stitches that were crooked, dough that wouldn’t rise. And always Maedhros had done as he was bid, and always it had turned out well.

“ _No_ ,” he said now, stood ankle deep in surf upon a foreign shore.

“Don’t do this,” Maglor hissed, tugging at his sleeve. “Come away, before something happens you’ll regret.”

Maedhros shook him off. “What do you think I’m trying to prevent? Father-”

“Pick up the torch or get out of my sight.”

There was no way to stop it, Maedhros saw with a hideous clarity. Reason would not avail him and even had his stomach not turned at the thought of violence so soon after the butchery upon the docks, he could not overpower his father, his brothers, all of their followers. And it would come to that. There were uncertain faces in the crowd but no resolve upon them. Not a one of them would side with him.

He bowed, stiffly, and strode away up the beach with what little dignity he could muster but he was running flat out by the time he reached the treeline.

It was childish to run off and foolish besides when the Enemy’s creatures might lurk within the darkened forest. He had a sword though, one he knew how to use to well, and if he would not strike his father still his anger burnt hotter than the ships upon the shore and he would be glad to see a monster die.

Nothing came though. Not orcs nor twisted Maia, not even his brothers.

The trees did not do enough to muffle the cries from the shore or the crackle of flame. From this distance, the faint, sweet smell of burning wood and the warm amber light could be mistaken for the cook fires from some party as the Teleri once hosted upon the sand.

It even smelt like roasting meat. Maybe his father had decided to organize a feast to celebrate their freedom or maybe they hadn’t bothered unloading all the provisions before they set the ships alight or maybe-

He was up and running long before he consciously made the leap, stumbling down the dunes, his boots filling up with grit, already knowing that he was too late, much too late.

From the shore, screams came rising up like smoke.

***

Relearning how to use a sword and, more importantly, a pen was exhausting and humiliating by turns but at least all understood why that should be so. It was the nonsensical things - making eye contact, letting people stand behind him, remembering to eat and drink - that were harder to explain. He had spent so long trying to distance himself from his body with its pain and needs gone unfulfilled that he no longer knew quite how to inhabit it. Eating was another unpleasant necessity of his recovery, not something to take pleasure in as it must surely once have been.

Maglor nagged when he pushed his meals aside unfinished. Celegorm sniffed, said he needed more red meat in his diet and set off to catch some. Caranthir nagged too, making up for what he lacked in elegant phrasing with volume. Curufin asked for a nutritional breakdown of a thrall’s diet that they might better replicate it and Amras did not speak to him at all.

Maedhros ignored them all except Curufin who had a point; it would be useful in the treatment of any future rescued prisoners and was a chance to practice his handwriting besides.

Even though the camp was well guarded and the sun long since set, Maedhros was not particularly surprised when Fingon came barreling into the tent - he had turned up in less likely places after all. He had a small sack in his hand, what looked like flour in his hair, and a disapproving look in his eyes.

“You should be asleep,” he said, scowling at the flickering candle upon the nightstand and the papers piled in Maedhros’ lap.

“So should you.” Maedhros did not ask why, if he was supposed to be sleeping, Fingon had come looking for him anyway, even though the look on his face would likely be amusing.

“I’m not convalescing.”

“Nor do you have thirty years of paperwork to catch up on.”

Fingon reached out as though to snatch the papers away and then, though Maedhros was sure he hid his flinch, thought better of it. “You’re much better supplied than we are,” he said instead, waving the bag in his other hand. “Look, I found these while going through your stores.”

“Stealing? And then flaunting your ill gotten gains? Do you want the infighting to start up again?”

“You won’t tell.”

“No,” Maedhros agreed. “I’m still too overcome with gratitude over your last theft.”

“ _That_ wasn’t stealing. And nor is this.” Fingon sat down upon the bed and thrust the bag at Maedhros. It was full of almonds, not sugared - where would they get sugar here? - but sticky with what looked like honey. “They’re for you.”

“I don’t like-” Maedhros swallowed the denial. He could no longer afford vanity of any kind. “Thank you. I really can’t eat them though.” He wasn’t about to cry over a bag of sweets, that would be ridiculous.  

Fingon shrugged and helped himself to one, crunching ostentatiously. “I do know what it’s like. Not entirely but by the time we reached Mithrim I’d become so used to being hungry it didn’t really feel like hunger anymore.”

“Fingon, I’m sorr-”

“I know you are, no need to start that again. Anyway, I thought it would help if it was something you enjoyed. No one finds gruel appetizing.”

“Caranthir likes it, actually. I’ve always found that suspicious.”

“I’ll add it to my list of things to hold against him. Now, if you aren’t going to eat them I suppose you must watch as I do so on your behalf.”

“You’re a better friend than I deserve.” He meant it to sound teasing but it came out horribly sincere.

Fingon gave him a bright, knowing look and took another almond. “What are you working on?”

“Nothing important.” Maedhros shuffled the pen and papers onto the nightstand and moved over so that Fingon could rest against the headboard beside him. “How did you get past the guards?”

“Bribery.” He shook the bag demonstratively, sending up a waft of sickly sweetness.

“That’s all it took? Do you think Melkor sent my brothers a fruit basket to keep them from-” Bitter, far too bitter. Maedhros selected an almond and stuck it in his mouth before he could say something truly unforgivable.

It wasn’t especially pleasant. It was piercingly sweet, enough so that it made his teeth ache but at least that was something else to think about. At least it tasted _of_ something as nothing had for years.

Fingon followed his example and took five, and then neither of them had to speak. Maedhros leant his head against his shoulder and listened to his jaw work, trying to think of nothing at all which was fairly easy. Fingon was bright and loud and terribly distracting, filling up every space he entered. If he were Maglor he’d make some poetic comparison between his friend and the almonds but he wasn’t so he didn’t. Instead he spat it back into his palm.

“That’s disgusting,” Fingon said as though he had not done exactly that throughout their childhood, without the excuse of teeth torn out or loosened by malnutrition.

“I’m High King of the Noldor - at least until the end of the week - and I shall do as I please,” Maedhros said and dropped it down the back of Fingon’s shirt.


End file.
